Children as young as 12 in Bountiful were working on logging loaders and skidders, earning well below the minimum wage, the leader of the polygamous community has testified.

Winston Blackmore revealed that fact in a Tax Court of Canada trial Wednesday as he attempted to fight a claim that he owes an extra $1.5 million in taxes for the years 2000 to 2004 and 2006.

Blackmore said the boys from the community did all kinds of summer jobs for his company J.R. Blackmore and Sons Ltd., including rounding up cattle, bundling fence posts and working at the company’s logging operation.

The parents of the children often designated where the children would go, Blackmore said.
“They were worried about risk, we all were.”

Blackmore couldn’t recall how much the children — all boys — were paid, but agreed when asked by federal government lawyer Lynn Burch that it was probably less than a couple of dollars an hour.

He said the children were issued cheques and he would cash them, giving them money from a store operation that J.R. Blackmore also owned.

Residents of Bountiful follow the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or FLDS, an offshoot of the Mormon church.